Got a Dale Jr that was in an electrical storm, stopped working, and is now non booting. GI comes on and sometimes display comes on but watchdogs are gating. After inspection there are lots of issues in the switch column section. I know I have blown/missing resistors and transistors, but looks like someone removed the 2 IC's circled in the schematic. Just wanted to check if anyone with a Dale can confirm those chips should be populated. I suspect yes because they are on the schematic and there are remnants of legs, but just wanted to be sure before I order parts and try to repair.

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Spiderpin thank you for the confirmation!

I replaced the blown parts, socketed the 2 chips and replaced those. Does not change my boot issues...but had to be done anyway. This thread continues the saga on boot...

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/whitestar-dale-jr-no-boot-u6-suspect

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Socketed and replaced many more 245 IC's that had legs clipped on CPU. Installed NVRAM. Bought a new game ROM and replaced that on CPU. Replaced the PAL chip and that drove a change in what it does on power up. Now L204 blinks/flashes (GI and relay do the same) and the reset button on the CPU board now works. I no longer suspect U6 on the IO board. That seems to be pulsing as it should and the L204 blinking seems to indicated CPU issue. Still no boot, still nothing on the display. if I unplug the display from CPU and boot with just IO board I can see Stern Pinball logo on the DMD, so I think it works but not with the CPU. Anyone have any ideas.....bad CPU rom, wrong jumpers, U214, bad watchdog chips? Ribbon cable was already replaced between CPU and IO. No batteries on it when I got it and I do not see any corrosion. Was in an electrical storm and blew up parts on the CPU. All voltages and fuses good on IO.

Cauldron Thank you for replying! I knew there was a proprietary chip in the Audio section and worried that would eventually rear its head. Just so I understand what to check, I pulled this off the web for 9572 assume the dot and yellow dot match up to the placement of U414 on the board. So I need to check the I/O on Pins 36 to 41 and 26 to 33 and 19-22 and 12-17, and 1-4, 6 -10 if any of them are to ground then it goes to Stern?

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I took Cauldron advice and checked all the U414 pins for short to ground. The only pins that did were the actual ground pins. I also put in a new U209 and socketed and replaced U214 but no change. Still blinking L204 on the IO board and lights/relay in synch with flashing.

Cauldron so I understand do you mean from u414 pins for D0 -D7 that run to the 6809 u209 and rom u210? Or different pins? If I got the right pins I have under 3v, but not the same on d0-d7…some were 1v, some 2.3, 1.4 but that was measured on u207

I pulled out my bk1479b and it lived long enough to get one pin. It was old and came out of a Florida shipment of pin stuff that fell off a pallet. Will see if I can bring it back to life. Guess the question is, would that tell me it was the Xilinx and needs to go to stern or would it have pointed to some other chip? Most everything else has been replaced (see pic)

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Also noticed that u209 6809 gets warm to the touch

Update but still no progress. I took Cauldron advice and sent it to Stern. Marco team was great to help me get it shipped to Stern and route the RMA. Stern took a look and said this "Parts were not replaced Due to all the Acid damage on the thru holes for the chips and we circled the location of the chips on the board. We did put the board on the test fixture but the board keeps resetting on us and we are unable to get it to boot up all the way. Board resetting we have seen due to data line issues from the acid damage on the board.

The one Chip we did remove, we included a socket and a new 74HCT74 chip for this location.

Please see attached pictures of your CPU board. We have found very bad acid damage all over the CPU board and the Acid has taken out multiple traces and Thru holes on the board. This board is way beyond being repaired and we would not be able to warranty any work on this type of damaged board. If you can get the board to boot up and everything checks out good besides the sound, you can go ahead and send it into Stern for the no sound issue and we will take a look at the board."

Pics below of the acid damage. Guess they should look at some of my Bally boards if they wanna see real bad acid damage. Either way I get it, too hard to troubleshoot and warranty.

They sent it back. They did confirm my IO board was good so I at least got that confirmation.

I socketed and replaced the U215 they removed and will methodically go through all the traces for all the replaced chips and the other key chips. As I replaced chips from the electrical storm damage to get to the L204 reset issue I did continuity checks....but could have missed some. There is no aftermarket board for these Whitestar's so I either get it to work or I have a massive paperweight. Can start looking for other MPU's I guess. Also, I hit any suspect legs with vinegar, water, alcohol and a toothbrush to kill off corrosion.

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